


a detour towards home

by vminthough



Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V & Park Jimin are Best Friends, Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V are Best Friends, Jeon Jungkook & Park Jimin are Best Friends, Kim Taehyung | V & Park Jimin are Best Friends, M/M, Minv, OT7, Platonic Cuddling, Polyamorous Character, Polyamorus Bangtan Boys | BTS Member(s), Polyamory, bts - Freeform, jikook - Freeform, koomin, mild mention of a car accident, namseok - Freeform, taekook, vkook, vmin - Freeform, vminkook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23760316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vminthough/pseuds/vminthough
Summary: Jungkook's boyfriend, Taehyung, is open to experimenting in their relationship, but what happens when Jungkook falls for Park Jimin, his arch-enemy since high school? Will their collective love for Jungkook be enough to reconcile what they once had?
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V/Park Jimin, Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung | V/Park Jimin
Comments: 39
Kudos: 163





	a detour towards home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for tan-ah's 22nd birthday, she loves her enemies to lovers angst fics a lot! <3
> 
> Interludes are flashbacks from the past. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Amidst it all

Life was tough when your boyfriend and best friend hated each other. Life was even worse when the three of you have known each other since your nappy days. Well, maybe not that early but the point remains. 

Jungkook had a gorgeous boyfriend and an equally gorgeous best friend. However, since the ice age, or maybe since Jungkook was 14 years old (which was practically the same thing as far as he was concerned), the duo had been on fight-on-sight mode. He was a simple man, and hence throughout his teenage years had endured the duo being on biting terms, but now Park Jimin was becoming more and more irresistible and his dreams were growing wilder than the weeds in front of his apartment...he had not touched them since he had moved in, which was about 2 years ago. He found it hard to voice to Taehyung that he now wanted more. Not just any type of more, which Taehyung was always up for trying, but his nemesis more. Which wasn’t exactly going to happen when the two refused to be in the same room as each other; virtual threesomes not hitting the right sort of spot for Jungkook. 

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, facing the sink and peeling a potato with the concentration of an inexperienced tight-rope walker on his first show. “How funny would it be if you and Jimin hyung got locked in the same room.”

“As funny as seeing me dropping dead in front of your eyes. Absolutely hilarious.” 

Jungkook flinched. Surely it was not that deep. Jeez. Jungkook tried again. “But he-”

“Why can't you go a minute without mentioning his name under this roof. Didn’t you tell me this was my safe place?” Jungkook sighed and re-handled his grip on the potato, there was a spot of brown skin he could not get to, even with the sharp, jabby bit of the peeler, there was probably a more technical name to that he had not endeavoured to find out yet. Taehyung was good at many things, Jungkook ought to know, but he was as useful in the kitchen as the clock behind the fridge that they had accidentally forgotten to remove when the fridge installers had come in. Basically, not at all.

“I mean, he is my best friend, I can’t possibly not talk about him,” Jungkook did not add, ‘when he runs across my mind more times than I do on the treadmill.’

Taehyung lifts his phone higher, covering more of his face, Jungkook watches him through the reflection on the window above the sink. “Your best friend is the biggest snake to grace this Earth, but you’re not ready for that conversation yet.”

“You two were once best friends too,” Jungkook said, he stuck his tongue out. Being mature was rather quite difficult whilst your two most favourite people acted 3 years old at best. 

“Once, that is the key term there. Now if you don’t close this conversation here I will be forced to move my ass to the living room and frankly, I don’t have the energy for that kind of heavy labour at this point in the day.”

“It’s 10 am hyung!” Jungkook finally got that blasted potato skin off, he poked it out with his nail, he cared not for hygiene. Taehyung could eat dirt from the back garden for all he cared at this point.

Interlude One

They were foolish 16-year-olds when the fight had occurred. The surge of teenage arrogance and stubbornness mixed with the inability to sit and talk through their anger had caused an ocean to form between the pair that neither knew how to swim out of it.

It was a Monday morning; the pair was about to go into their double maths class (as if one hour of Maths on a Monday was not enough; they were scheduled for two long hours of it). Jimin stood leaning against the green walls of the exploratory wing. Their school was split into three buildings; sciences and maths in one, creative subjects and physical exercise in the other and the last belonged to humanities subjects.

His school bag hung from his left shoulder; his blazer still neat from yesterday’s ironing. The pair liked to wear their first two buttons down, they thought it made them look cool. Hindsight was a beautiful thing because if either could go back, they would tell their younger selves that they were anything but that. 

The lack of texts from Jimin from the night before had made Taehyung want to punch a wall. He had received one-word replies to most of the texts he had sent, a feeling of anxiety swelling up inside of him that he knew he had no rights to feel. Jimin was his best friend, he wouldn’t lie to him. Or would he?

He had tried to spend the night playing card games with his sister, she was 2 years younger and liked to cling to Taehyung like lint on woollen coats. She was his best bet at being distracted, to try and not analyse every text and the tone that they conveyed. She was in the same classes as Jungkook, and how the three boys were introduced to each other. Every time that Taehyung invited Jimin over, which was about every other day, his sister took it as a competition to invite Jungkook over. It was safe to say, although Jungkook was best friends with Mina, he did spend a considerable amount of his time gawking at the older two. 

Jimin and Taehyung had met at the age of 11 on the first day of high school and ever since then they had been stuck to the hips. It was strange to see one without the other in the corridor. They were a package that came together; if one was heard, the other was sure to follow closely behind. Taehyung was the mouthpiece of the pair; when a question was directed at Jimin, it was Taehyung who answered for him. And he was always right, he said exactly what Jimin would have said.

It was a battle for which one of the two would snap out of it and say something, and both were adamant to keep their silences. Jimin was staring at his phone with so much zeal that Taehyung was sure he had caused a hole in it. He grit his teeth. Every fibre of him was fighting to control the urge to shake Jimin by the shoulder and ask him where he was the night before. But the small amount of self-respect that lived in the small of his stomach stopped him from striding forth. 

The teacher raised an eyebrow from where she sat, very much surprised by the pair that sat at the front of her class not causing havoc today like they did every other lesson. Their shoulders were hunched all the way to their ears, their pencils gripped as tightly as a sword on a battlefield. They were best friends, like a 100 others that walked into her room. But unlike all their former petty fights, these two would never rekindle their friendship after this one. 

It was the start of a bitter war that would be waged between two boys who had until then known each other as their homes. The walls would come crumbling down and the roof would cave in until it crashed against the floor. There would be nothing, but dust left in its wake.

Neither would make it to their 3rd period. 

“You could have just told me where you were!” Taehyung had tried not to scream, but Jimin’s pathetic excuses until now were like nails being hammered into his skull. His head was splitting in pain and he just wanted to be done with this conversation.

“It was not your type of party or else I would have told you!” Jimin roared back, although the quieter one of the two, his temper was like a pan left out in the high noon on the hottest day of the year; touch it and risk losing some skin. 

“I don’t care about me not going, I am just mad that you lied to me you bastard,” Taehyung’s words were dropping like hot coal from a child’s hand, not fast enough.

“I just didn’t want to hurt you,” the smaller boy said, his eyes lowering to stare at his shoes. His hands in a fist. 

“Well you failed at that didn’t you?” 

“It wasn’t my fault that they didn’t invite you!” Taehyung could tell Jimin had wanted to keep this a secret, but now that he had hurt Taehyung once, he may as well go the full extent. 

“Not only did you go to a party where your own best friend was not invited, you also decided to lie to me, well fucking done Park, well fucking done.” Taehyung did a mock round of applause. He saw Jimin wince. 

“I’m tired of always having to think about you before I think about myself, so what if I went out and enjoyed myself for one night?”

“Oh, and you’re not even sorry about it? For fuck’s sake, did they drug you last night or are you still pathetically drunk?”

“How much I drink is up to me, I am tired of you judging me for my drinking habits, not my fault you’re still a child who can’t keep a drink down.” 

“Jimin I only joke about it because I care about you.”

“Since we’re already hurting each other, let’s just set the record straight and say I don’t appreciate your jokes about my drinking. And stop blaming my words on drinks and drugs. Maybe you don’t know me well enough if you think every word that isn’t a compliment towards you is induced by a substance.”

Ouch. 

“I thought I knew my best friend well enough to trust them.”

“Then don’t fucking trust me Taehyung.”

Jimin turned on his heels and walked off, in the opposite direction to where Taehyung still stood shocked. His bones felt infused with lead, his muscles stiff like frozen clothes that have been left outside in December. His mind numb against all the shooting pain that ached through him. His tears were the only thing that seemed fluid about him, they were hot against his cheek. His lips tasted the pain and salt in the same density. 

After the third facetime failed to go through, Taehyung finally put down his phone by his side and covered his face with both of his hands; the tears seemed to be unstoppable. He turned to the bare wall on his left, ashamed of the way his heart was tearing itself apart. Curling his legs into his chest, he made himself as small as he possibly could; he wanted to cease to exist. Jimin was breaking him like a wet stick; it was slow and painful. 

It was well known by all of Jimin’s friends that he turned his Wi-Fi off before bed, but it was only known to Taehyung and Jungkook that he also hated to sleep angry. And yet, he had not replied to the text Taehyung had sent that morning, before the fight. Nor had he attempted to call Taehyung after that. 

They had never argued like this before, everything else in their past had been a small matchstick of a flame compared to the wildfire that was raging on now. Taehyung amidst it, burning to ashes. 

Long paragraphs of texts that required scrolling a few times and facetime were the way the trio dealt with past arguments. And yet, this time, nothing came. Taehyung’s phone was put on the highest volume, his ears aching for the sound of a notification and yet the silence was gnawing at his bones.

He stared at his ceiling; he could still see the patches where the glow-in-the-dark stickers had once been. He counted them to try and not pick up his phone again and search for a text that was not coming. 

They were 12-year-olds when Taehyung had held up Jimin by the hip as they both wobbled together trying to get rid of the stickers on the ceiling. Laughter rang throughout the house as they fell, again and again, on top of each other and on the bed whilst failing at removing the stars that had made up Taehyung’s childhood bedroom.

“Stop tickling me!” Jimin squirmed away, as Taehyung wiggled his toes near Jimin’s side. He closed off his body to Taehyung’s misdemeanours. His eyes are large and sparkling in childhood innocence. 

That only made Taehyung get onto his knees and tackle Jimin with his hands, digging them into Jimin’s neck as he screamed in playful delight. “I will kick you,” Jimin gushed out, breathing heavily as Taehyung backed off to catch his own, “and I won’t even be sorry!” 

His dad had shouted at Taehyung 2 days later when he came into the room and found what the pair had done. He had given Taehyung the ladder and told him to take off the rest of the stickers that the pair had not been able to reach from the bed; he had called Jimin over to help. They were both to be blamed so why would Taehyung suffer the punishment on his own? 

They had once bathed in the reassurance of each other’s friendship, the equality of their feelings for each other was like a comforting hug on a cold day. 

And yet, at 16 years old, Taehyung lay awake, all alone, adamant on keeping the promise of never going to sleep angry. He watched the glimmer of orange and yellow hues colour his room, starting from the floor and creeping all the way to his bed. The colour seeping in like a drop of red water paint on a white paper. He wondered if Jimin was watching the sunrise too. Had Jimin kept his side of the promise or had he failed Taehyung with that too?

Their argument had taken place amidst the changing of seasons. The flowers were now in full blossom, the tug of war between day and night was being won by the former, darkness was losing its grip on the rope and giving away to light. It was also exam season for the pair.

Jimin’s reply came the next day, it was a simple “okay.” The full stop felt like a knife to Taehyung’s suprasternal notch. He walked shakily to the bathroom, the lack of sleep making his brain slosh in his skull like a fish in a mason jar. He saw himself in the mirror, the paleness to his skin was almost beautiful compared to the vacant look in his eyes.

Walking into the school building, the first thing that greeted Taehyung was the library to his left and the school reception to his right. He stopped short before the full-length glass windows of the silent study area; Jimin was sat with a pencil in his mouth and his hands in his hair, he was struggling with whatever was in front of him. Probably English homework, his forte had always been maths and science. 

This image would be the same one that greeted him every free minute the pair had in the school. Jimin made an excuse for one exam or the other and headed to the silent study area; it was becoming his second home. Taehyung watched him eat lunch there, saw him with his head down on his arms and fast asleep there too. 

Their conversations grew short, their texts infrequent. “I’m headed to bed, talk to you tomorrow,” was followed by “I will talk to you once I get home,” and back again. Taehyung’s messages showed up with one tick rather than two; Jimin was putting his phone on aeroplane mode to study for more hours of the day than not.

Amidst the chaos of their broken relationship was Jungkook, he felt like he was balancing two candlesticks on either hand, both ablaze, and unable to let go of either. 

He never saw Jimin at Taehyung’s house anymore, which meant that the trio rarely ever hung out together. He was 2 years younger than both, culturally it would be wrong for him to pry on his hyung’s relationship and ask what had happened. He didn’t think he could take the truth. He was only 14 at the time, in his 3rd year of high school, Jimin and Taehyung in their 5th year and doing some of the most important exams of their lives. He let them be. 

“Ayyyy Kookie!” Jimin always grew brighter at the sight of Jungkook, he was cupping the younger boy’s cheeks as he spoke, “did you finish your homework from yesterday? Do you want hyung to go over it again for you before class?” 

Jungkook would shake his head, no, yesterday’s 3 hours of facetiming over chemistry homework was enough to put him off the subject for a lifetime. 

His friendship with Jimin grew closer as the distance between Jimin and Taehyung grew larger. He spent most of his after school at Taehyung’s like he had done before “the fight”, that remained unchanged. But most of his evenings he spent talking to Jimin, as Jimin studied and Jungkook tried to study and failed mostly. 

It was hard to not talk of one to the other when so much of his life was occupied by the pair, but Jungkook had always been more thoughtful than most. He was the youngest in an Asian family; he knew to speak only when spoken to. He was well acquainted with the process of thinking a thousand times before he said anything, too afraid of being wrong or coming off as rude.

Amidst movie nights and sleepovers with the Kim siblings, Jungkook found himself gulping at every accidental touch with the oldest of the three. He found his stomach drop every time the pair were alone in the kitchen, on Saturdays when he would come over for breakfast. Staring at his cereal like it held all the secrets to his heart, he would try to drown out the buzzing in his ears that were whispering of something more between the two. He would bite the insides of his cheeks, try and hide the smile that would otherwise spill across his face like paint across a canvas, at the sight of Taehyung’s sleepy self bumping into furniture as he trotted out to the living room. 

The duo spent a lot of their time gaming, it was something that brought them together in a way that nothing else did. And amidst team working and zombie killings, a thousand wins and just as many losses, there would come a day when Taehyung’s hands would wind up in Jungkook’s. The pair would stare at the frozen screen in front of them, neither willing to acknowledge the action but more so not wanting to be the first to withdraw. 

It was a rule that Jungkook slept in Taehyung’s room when he was sleeping over, and when Jimin had been a part of the picture, he too had been subjected to the same ruling. Only now Jungkook felt himself blaze up in a different sort of heat when he woke up too close to Taehyung, his breath caught halfway in his throat. And when Taehyung pulled him closer to his chest, like he had done with whoever slept next to him, Jungkook found it hard to fall asleep once again. 

So, the first time that Taehyung had rubbed his face in Jungkook’s neck he had whimpered. Unable to control the soft groan that had been buried in his chest for such a long time. Taehyung only laughed and pulled him closer, wrapping his legs around him and tightening his arms. 

Jungkook pressed his knuckles into his mouth as Taehyung lightly bit on his earlobe and whispered, “I like you too Ggukie.”

The First Misfortune

A few hours later Taehyung had watched the pair leave together. He was in bed at 2 pm, the duvet tucked under his chin, he was treating himself to a nap like every other day. ‘He’s always so fucking selfish,’ he thought as he heard the honking of Jimin’s car outside; he was here to collect Jungkook. ‘Wonder what the dick is up to today.’ 

All those years later, and yet Taehyung had thought of Jimin on every one of those days; mostly it was inevitable due to Jungkook being the mutual link between the two. The maknae never stopped gushing about Jimin, it was like Jimin was the only person capable of lighting a part of him that no one else could. He hated that about Jimin, how easily he was loved by people. What he hated more was how hard it was to despise him, but he was trying his best at it.

He turned to face the window which showed him the view of the street. Jimin was a blur as he got out of the car and ran into Jungkook’s arms. He did this every time they saw each other; it was as if they had been separated for the 5 years instead of himself and Taehyung. Taehyung watched him cup Jungkook’s face in both of his hands, talking excitedly about something, the traffic and the distance swallowing up his words. The back of Jungkook’s head bobbed up and down as he agreed to whatever it was he was hearing, Taehyung wondered if it was Jimin that was controlling the movement of his head or if it was Jungkook himself. It was hard to tell.

He closed his eyes to the scene outside, allowing the summer’s warmth soak into his skin and lull him to sleep. He could already imagine Jungkook coming back home, snuggling himself against Taehyung, his arms wrapped around the older boy like a pet gone too long without affection. Taehyung tried to blur out most things about Jimin, but he knew exactly how his former best friend smelt, because Jungkook came drenched in his scent. It had evolved through the year, currently Jimin’s smell was overpoweringly sweet; like nectarines and honey.

Could already feel Jungkook’s kisses on his chin and jaw as he grumbled, “you know how much time I could save if we all cuddled together as a trio like before?” He would tut to home in his point, “as if I don’t already have so much to do!” 

Normally Taehyung would grab onto his wrists, plant kisses on them and grin, “you’ve done enough cuddling with your best friend for a day, let’s go do something else for the evening.” And that would be how they would end up having a late dinner on most nights as they watched the sunset in bed together, glowing in each other’s presence. 

Except that today was not like every other day. Today Jungkook would not come home. 

Interlude Two

Taehyung stumbled back as he felt a hard shove on his upper chest, his hands thrown out to get his balance back. He did not manage to in time, because before he knew what was going on, he felt another hard shove back. On the third attempt, Taehyung grabbed Jimin’s hand and kept it there. He had seen a blur of Jimin striding forward towards him but had not anticipated his next move. How could he? 

“What. The. Fuck?” Taehyung spat at Jimin. 

“You lied to me!” Jimin was screaming, his voice thick with tears.

Taehyung pressed his fingers into Jimin’s wrist, “care to explain?”

“You rejected me repeatedly, told me you weren't ready for anything more than friendship and now you're out there dating our best friend? Why?”

“Because I like him Jimin, there I said it.” 

“And I wasn’t good enough for you?”

“I don’t see you in that way Jimin-ah, I’m sorry,” Taehyung let go of Jimin’s hand, it dropped to his side like a limp fish on a rod. 

“Fine. I’m ready to accept that I am not your type, but why would you keep me hanging all those years? I was waiting for you, god dammit.” The tears in Jimin’s eyes were brimming to the top, his eyelashes catching the glimmer of them.

“Me and Jungkook have been spending a lot of time together and I realised I was ready for something different. Since you have been close to a stranger to me over the past few weeks.” 

“I am taking half of my exams this year Taehyung; you know this better than anyone else for fucks sake. What do you want me to do? Sit my ass down on a gaming chair and waste away? I don’t have the luxury of a second chance Kim; I have 2 years to get that scholarship and I am getting it. No ifs or buts.”

“Coincidentally, you just happened to start getting your shit together just after our argument ey?”

“It made me realise what’s actually important to me.”

“And our friendship means nothing to you? Jeez, thanks buddy.”

“I would have been back to normal in a few weeks, I just had to get away for a while, but now I don’t think so anymore.”

“Something’s changed between us Jimin,” Taehyung looked right into Jimin’s eyes, he looked at the boy he had once promised to grow old with. The same boy who knew more about him than he did himself. The only other person who had seen his bare and naked soul. He searched for his old Jimin-ah, the one who loved him unconditionally. He struggled to find him. 

Jimin took a few steps back, he was unsteady on his feet. “Maybe it has,” he said, as the first drop of tear freed itself from his eyes and cascaded onto his cheek. 

He knew he had been wrong to not reject Jimin outright over the years as he hinted at the pair getting together. He ought to have told his former best friend that that was exactly what he was; a best friend and nothing more.

It was only seeing Jungkook’s bold eyes, his long stares and sighs that Taehyung had realised he was in fact ready for something else. Unlike Jimin, Jungkook did not hide his lust for Taehyung; he would have to be blind to not see the way the younger boy gawked at him. It made him feel a warmth tingling at the bottom of his stomach, his breaths came out a little rugged at the thought of Jungkook against him. It would just be torture for both of them if he had not confessed to Jungkook about his reciprocated feelings. Not to mention that, for some odd reasons, hurting Jungkook was unthinkable in his mind.

He saw himself and Jimin on an equal plane, knew they shared the same pain together; but he had this strong urge to shade Jungkook away from any pain the world handed to him on a gold platter, under disguise of growth and maturity. He was determined to protect Jungkook from any harm; ever.

The accident

That was why when 5 years later Jimin rang him for the first time he saw his entire world-shattering. It was like the colour in his world was slowly being stripped away until all he had left was black shrouding him. He grabbed onto the kitchen counter and halted himself from falling face first onto the marble floor. 

Jimin’s voice was layered with tears, he only said, “There was an accident, Jungkook’s in surgery.”

He took a taxi to the hospital, he was struggling to stay conscious, much less drive. His lover of 5 years was laying on a surgical table somewhere in one of the many theatres the hospital held. Surgeons, with all the rights in the world, did not treat their patients on the table as humans but as body parts. It was the only way to get their job done. It made Taehyung a little sick to imagine Jungkook without any control over his own body.

He cranked open the window to the taxi, aware of the nauseous feeling crawling at his throat. The otherwise bright city lost all its glimmer, the neon signs of shops and streets all dulled to his eyes. He needed to know Jungkook was okay. 

At the reception he had sputtered out Jungkook’s full name and date of birth, praying the receptionist wouldn't ask him anything else. He knew everything about his lover, but now was not the time for trivia. The lady looked down her spectacles, her frown dismounted her face as she looked at her screen; Taehyung knew whatever she had seen was not good. 

“He’s on level 2, theatre three, but son there’s -” 

Taehyung didn't hear the rest of her sentence; he was sprinting off again. This was the main hospital their city had, everyone knew parts of it, from an ophthalmic appointment here or an x-ray being done there. He was well accustomed to the layout of the hospital.

What he didn't know was that only children were allowed one parent to occupy them from the theatre recovery to their respected ward. For adults, surgeries were a lonely process of being isolated for hours, firstly in the theatre itself and then during the stabilizing period before their trip up to the ward. He would not see Jungkook until hours later.

He did not wait for the lifts, there were 6 of them, but ran up the 2 flights of stairs. He did not want to be at the mercy of machines, his life had lost all its normality, this was his last attempt at gaining back some control over it. His eyes scanned for the sign that told him where the boy he had loved lay, but everything blurred for a while. He could feel the lactic acid in his calves, his eyes were stinging.

And then on the third turn of his head, he saw through the glass panel of the double doors a lone figure stood facing the doors at the end of that corridor; it was Jimin. He ran, blindly and came to a halt behind Jimin, he still did not turn. Was his pain as much as Taehyung’s? Was he too struggling to take in the reality of the situation? Of what they could both lose by the end of the night if things didn't go according to plan? 

He reached out his right hand and placed it on Jimin’s shoulder and even then he did not turn. But Taehyung saw his body relax under his touch, he heard a sigh and then Jimin was in his arms. His face buried into Taehyung’s neck as sobs tore out of him with so much agony that Taehyung grit his teeth at the sound of it. Jimin’s fingers dug into his shoulders and he was thankful for the physical pain of it; it helped to clear his mind a little.

They stood like that for a long time, their two universes stopped short as the rest of the world clattered on with its noisy living. Porters brought in different patients from all over the hospital, cleaners mopped up the floor and the doctors and nurses on the other side of the theatre doors continued with their jobs. The cars outside screeched and restarted and the leaves swayed in the summer breeze. No one cared about the two boys that were struggling to cope with the idea of losing their wide eyed, way-too-muscular-for-his-own-good, innocent boy that meant the most to them.

“It’s all my fault,” Jimin gasped out, his tears muffling the words. “It’s all my fault Taehyung.” 

If Taehyung knew anything about Jimin, it was that he loved Jungkook more than life itself. He would jump in front of a bullet, a thousand times over, to save Jungkook from a scratch. A lot had changed about his former best friend, but Jimin’s love for Jungkook would be something he carried to the grave with him.

When they finally untangled, Taehyung looked for a seat for the duo to perch on but to his dismay there was none. Unbeknown to the pair, this was to stop exactly what they were doing; loitering in the theatre corridor which needed immediate access in an emergency. It was things that the manager of theatre recovery had to give justifications for in her annual audits, not that either would ever hear of it.

“What happened?” Taehyung finally asked. He was struggling between wanting to pretend nothing was wrong and wanting to know every tiny detail about his baby's situation.

“A child ran out,” Jimin wiped the tears off from his cheeks with the back of his sweater, the dark green turning almost black with the moisture. “I swerved left an-d an-d.” He was crying again, his palms pressed into his eyes, Taehyung wondered if he was trying to rub away at the memory, hoping it would disappear like writing from a whiteboard.

To save a child’s life Jimin had put Jungkook’s in peril. But Taehyung knew he would have done the same in a situation like that. He couldn’t blame Jimin for anything, it would be too cruel or do that. But he stayed silent. Unable to comfort the crying boy, his words stuck to the insides of his mouth like melted sticky toffee at the bottom of a bag. He wanted them out, but he was powerless. He let himself slide down the opposite wall to where Jimin stood, his knees finally giving away. A door’s width separated the two, but it was too large for either to cross. Because after all, behind that same door was Jungkook, someone neither could afford to lose.

He heard Jimin wince to sit down and finally saw the patches of blood covering him. He was scratched all along the left of his face, his arms were cut open and both of his knees looked like they’d been scraped with a cheese grater. He probably did not let anyone touch him, Taehyung could imagine Jimin screaming at the emergency practitioners to leave him alone and fix his Kookie. He would have done the same. 

They would not know of Jungkook’s limp body on a hospital trolley being transferred from the theatre 3 to the recovery unit until one of the nurses informed them later on. His mouth contained an endotracheal tube, maintaining his airway whilst he had been put to sleep via anaesthesia. Would never learn of the doses of morphine that kept his pain at bay; it was a spinal cord injury that would leave him in bed for 6 months. And even after that, it would take years for the trauma to fade, but eventually, it would.

Both the pair would jump to their feet at the sight of the first person that emerged out of theatre 3, they’d just finished cleaning up and wanted to get to the staff room via a shortcut which only the bravest dared use; for fear of conversations that would be held with anxious parents and worried lovers.

“The consultant will speak to you fully on the ward, but for now he’s stable.” 

The nurse in charge had let Jimin and Taehyung stay the night when Jungkook was finally transferred onto the ward, “but only because it’s late and they both look hazardous at best. Tell them I want them gone before my medicine round at 8 am.” She had told the 3rd year student nurse who had stumbled into the staff office with red blotches on his cheeks and a crumpled paper in his hand where he’d taken Jungkook’s notes from the theatre nurse. 

He pushed a second armchair from the next bay, the patient was alone for the night and would not require it anyway; they were zonked out from all the medication that the student nurse had to keep a chart of.

  
“If you click the button on the side, the chair will recline,” the student nurse named Yoongi said, and with that, he turned to go. 

Taehyung looked at the door and sighed. It was going to be a long night. They’d been told by the consultant that Jungkook would not wake up for another few hours, and if he did, he would not remember most of it.

Jimin moved his chair to the far corner of the room, close to the door and sat down. His back straight and his feet placed firmly on the floor. Taehyung could tell he was not planning on sleeping. There was no way in hell that anyone was going to be sleeping in this room, unless heavily drugged; just one of the stands next to Jungkook had four different machines, all connected to one cannula or another. They all had different volumes of medicines that were being drilled into his beloved, all beeping at odd rhythms. The monitors attached to him were flashing in reds and greens. He had noticed the student nurse messing with it until the oxygen saturation was showing in a larger font than the rest, and then took another few seconds to position in a way that baffled Taehyung but was sure it made sense to him in some way or the other. He would later learn that he been trying to position it so he could see it from outside the room without having to come in.

Sometime after 5 am, Jungkook groaned in his sleep; it was the first noise he had made all night. Taehyung wiped away at the drool that was falling out of his mouth as he slumped against the bed and slept. He had fallen asleep after all. He took Jungkook’s hand, instinctively, and gave it a squeeze. A lump grew in his throat as he got nothing back, Jungkook had fallen into his slumber again. 

Fresh tears lined Jimin’s face when he looked up and saw him still sitting in the same position as he had done all those hours before. His tears were flowing past his cheeks and onto his neck. He was not even trying to wipe them anymore. His glassy eyes were fixed onto Jungkook’s face, Taehyung wondered just how long he had been crying in this way. He told himself to stop thinking like that, it made him feel a sort of pain for Jimin that he had taught himself over the years to not feel. He could not let one-night ruin the hard work of many years’ past; Taehyung looked away and pressed his face into Jungkook’s cold fingers. 

A few hours later there would be two things that would register in Taehyung’s mind at once: firstly, that Jungkook had opened his eyes, albeit only halfway, and looked about the room for a few seconds before falling asleep. And secondly that a second later Jimin would be rushing out the room.

Making sure the youngest was fast asleep again, Taehyung would stumble into the small hallway that the two side rooms were in and then into the main corridor that led out to the ward. He would catch Jimin’s wrist as he was walking out the double doors. He did not know on what whim he had run after Jimin; it was as if he had lost control of his senses for a few seconds and before he knew it he was stopping the boy he hated so much from leaving. ‘What are you doing?’ He would ask himself. And no answer would greet him.

“Where are you going?” His voice sounded groggy; he had slept a lot more than he had intended to. Embarrassment crawled into his skin and burrowed deep. 

“I only wanted to see him open his eyes before I left.” Jimin still stood facing the main ward, his back to Taehyung. 

“Where are you going?” Taehyung repeated, knowing he was talking to the master of white liars. 

Jimin tried to free his wrist from Taehyung’s grasp, “I don’t deserve to be there when he wakes up, let me go.” 

“Stop being a fool Jimin, you’ll be the first person he asks for when he wakes up.”

Twisting around, with tears lining his cheeks, Jimin said, “not after what I did to him.”

“It was an accident. Do you know the meaning of that? Do you want me to define it for you?” 

“What if he can never dance again, then what will happen?” Jimin had finally managed to free himself from Taehyung’s grasp but the shame of his action was too much, he pressed his face onto the wall next to him and cried once more. 

Jungkook had many passions in life, all of them more creative than the last; but dancing was the one form of expression he loved the most. He had won every dancing competition there was to be won in their small city, and whichever he did manage to come second in, they all knew were rigged. Taehyung wanted to laugh at the innocent worry of the crying boy in front of him, it was oddly humorous that he was agonising himself over something that Taehyung had not even thought of yet. He was just happy to know his Ggukie was alive.

“Nothing would hurt my pride more than Jungkook waking up and asking me where you are Jimin,” Taehyung said, “come back once you’ve cried yourself out.”

Interlude Three

Taehyung used his fists to knock onto the Park families shabby house. He had learnt early on their friendship that their home was as fragile as a newly born baby. Everything had to be handled with care, from the doors to the plates and especially the people. But for once he did not care for the rules he had picked up out of observing Jimin, a sea’s worth of anger was boiling inside of him and he needed to speak to the bastard that was hell-bent on making his life miserable. 

“Hello kiddo,” Jin opened the door, still in his uniform from his shifts at the supermarket, “haven’t seen you in a while!” 

“Where’s Jimin?”

Jin reached out and petted Taehyung’s head, “did you drop your manners on the run-up here?” He was smiling as he said this and stepped back to let Taehyung in. “He’s in the garden.”

As Taehyung headed to the back of the house, he heard Jin shouting at him, “please remind him it’s summer, I think he’s forgotten!”

Jimin had his feet wedged under the small gap of the fence, he was doing crunches. His grey-black t-shirt was soaked in sweat, a map of a forgotten world carved into it. His fingers were struggling to keep themselves at the back of his head as he reached up once more.

Taehyung strode over and dislodged the book that was pressed into the fence, it was the revision guide for the next year’s final exams. It was the summer holiday before their final year but apparently no such thing existed for Jimin. 

“Well,” Jimin sputtered out trying to seem more in control of his ragged breathing than he really was, “hello to you to my old friend.”

“Why do you have to be so low?” Taehyung spat down at Jimin who was lying on the ground now, resting his head on his clasped fingers. 

“I can stand up for you if you want,” Jimin smirked. 

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, you piece of shit.”

“Well if I couldn't get the older brother, I thought I’d go for the next best.”

“Jimin, that’s my baby sister for fuck’s sake! You make me sick.”

“It's just a summer fling Taehyung, I’m not planning on marrying her!”

“Wait,” Taehyung bent down and grabbed a fistful of Jimin’s flimsy t-shirt. He yanked him up so that they were eye to eye. “Let me get this straight, you’re using her to mess around with for a few weeks?”

“Precisely, you really think I’ll have time to date someone when school starts again?”

“You’re.Using.My.Baby.Sister.For.Your.Own.Amusement?”

There was the hatred that Taehyung felt for their school bus driver who seemed to have in it for him, there was the hatred he had for his racist uncle who never seemed to think before he spat out slurs and then there was the hatred he felt for Jimin, the boy who was playing with his sister’s heart. Jimin had topped them all, every single one of them. 

“She’s a sweetheart, I think we can both do with some meaningless dating.”

“It’s not meaningless to her, you fucking bastard!” 

“Well, that’s her problem then, isn't it?”

“She won’t listen to me when I tell her to break up with you, so you’re going to do it. This second.” Taehyung’s teeth were clenched so hard he could feel their pain all the way along his face. The summer breeze that graced him seemed to be taunting him of the finer things in life that he could spare a thought to now, his world was falling apart, and it was all this wreckless bitches’ fault. 

“You lost all rights over me the day you decided to string me along with “I’m not ready for a relationship” and then started dating our mutual best friend a few days after our first ever proper argument.”

The sun seemed to be a lot closer to Taehyung’s scalp than he had originally thought. He was melting head down. Every inch of him was on fire. This fucker was playing around with his little sister. ‘Oh god, how was I ever friends with him?’ Taehyung wanted to put his hands to his knees and vomit. This was all a bit too much. 

“Block my number, rip my picture out of every album and forget I ever existed Park Jimin. Because that’s what I’m about to do with you.”

And that would be the last time the pair ever spoke. The bridge between the two was not only burnt but it was drowned in the vastness of the ocean and swallowed by multiple sharks. Every memory of Taehyung’s of the past 4 years was tainted by a splash of red paint; anger discoloured the images of Jimin he once cherished in his mind and made them crinkle at the edges. He was disgusted by how much he had let this one-person influence so much of his life. No matter how much he tried, he would never really be able to wipe Jimin fully out of his life, Jimin had embedded himself in the finer details of the way Taehyung spoke, the opinions he had on subjects and the way he carried himself. He hated Jimin the most for that. 

  
The blossoming of a flower in a cracked stone.

Overlooking the city, the window behind Jungkook’s bed was allowing the bronze-gold light of the afternoon’s sun to immerse the three occupants. And in its warmth stood Jimin. He was facing towards the city, his arms across his chest and his head slightly lowered. 

Taehyung sat at the foot of Jungkook’s bed, he was fast asleep, it was his fourth day at the hospital, and although he was looking perkier than he had done a few days ago, he still slept more than a toddler. It was the medication, Yoongi, that was the name of the student nurse that they had met on the first night, had informed them.

An oversized sweater, Taehyung recognised it was Jungkook’s, was tucked at the front where his belt was clipped. The rest of it flowed around the edges. His black jeans clung to his thighs and calves, in a way that made a warm flush appear on Taehyung’s cheeks. His shoes were the only thing that reminded him of the former Jimin, they were still as neatly polished as his school shoes; Taehyung wondered if Jimin had come back from a meeting or a photo shoot. He could not tell.

When he turned around, their eyes met for a few seconds, and this was the first time neither looked away. Taehyung chewed the inside of his cheek at the realisation that this was the first time he was noticing Park Jimin 5 years. He had seen him over that duration but had never really paid any attention. On the night of the accident, his mind had been too preoccupied in fear and grief to take heed of his former best friend.

When he had met Namjoon for the first time, he swiped his hand in front of him in a dismissive tone, “social media is too overrated, I refuse to become one of those zombies with their noses in their phones! Here’s my number instead, I prefer phone calls.” 

Namjoon had watched Taehyung write his number on his moleskin notebook, very much annoyed at the disruption to the flow of his pages but also very happy to have someone so down to earth as his friend. 

It had been all a lie; Taehyung was just avoiding Jimin’s presence on all the different social media that he was a master of. Jungkook was always going on about how he had the largest following out of everyone he knew, “he is so well-loved!” The youngest had gushed. 

But standing there now, with his high cheekbones and intense gaze, his hair loosely pushed back away from his forehead; Taehyung realised just how beautiful he looked. 

Taehyung was the first to break eye-contact, to pretend to fix the blanket around Jungkook as he was aware of the boy he had rejected during his teenage years.

The thawing of ice

“I hate how the hospital only has two visiting times a day, imagine how inconvenient it must be for families with little kids and elderly people to access it.” Taehyung was sitting in his car, there was 15 minutes till he’d be able to enter the ward to visit Jungkook.

“Or are you just annoyed that you and Jimin have to spend 2 hours a day together in the same small room cooped up with Jungkook?” Namjoon asked from the other end of the phone call. 

“No! It’s inconvenient for his parents too, they both have had to take special leave from work so they can visit him daily at the same time. They don’t get their lunches! Do you not see how unfair that is?”

“At least they’re nice enough to take the morning visit time, or else you’d have to miss all of your 11 am lectures and then I’d have double the work to do every day trying to make you understand the notes! Tell Jungkook’s parents I’m grateful for their sacrifice,” Taehyung could hear the smile in Namjoon’s voice, and could see his crescent moon smile in his head.

He heard Namjoon shout to Hoseok about some papers the pair were looking for. “This is why I like Hobi hyung better than you!” Taehyung retorted back. “Give him a kiss from me, I miss him.” 

“You can kiss him when you see him next, I’m not touching him till he finds the gas bill,” Namjoon’s voice softened, “We miss you both a lot, tell Jungkook to get well faster, it’s been days since we last saw him!”

Slipping his phone into his pocket and grabbing the packages of snack’s he’d picked up, Taehyung walked across the parking lot and into the hospital. In the reflection of the next set of double doors, he would see Jimin walking a few paces behind him. A plain white t-shirt that showed a lot of his collarbone and ripped jeans that had more threads hanging out than they were weaved adorned his slim figure today. Taehyung pressed tightly onto the lifts ‘close door’ button and rode up alone. 

Jungkook was sitting up in bed, his hospital gown hanging loosely off from his shoulder, and his bunny smile reaching up to his eyes as he spotted Taehyung. He was getting better by the day, before long he’d be able to fling Taehyung over his shoulders like he used to. The older boy couldn’t wait to have his old Ggukie back.

Taehyung kicked the door back with his left foot, fully aware that Jimin was behind him. He dropped the two paper bags of unhealthy snacks that the nurses would tut at and kissed Jungkook full on the mouth. His hands slowly reaching up to hold onto the smaller boy’s face. When they broke away, Taehyung tilted his head and kissed him again, he heard Jungkook moan and smiled into the kiss.

When they finally broke away, Jungkook called out to Jimin who was emptying the paper bags onto the small table that Jungkook had all his meals on. “Jimin-ssi!” 

The smaller boy crossed the small distance between them, took Jungkook’s face in his hands like he had been doing ever since Jungkook teenagers. “My kookie,” he whispered. A soft smile playing at his lips. “I missed you,” he slid a hand through Jungkook’s hair to take them out of his eyes. 

Taehyung tried to not notice how Jungkook’s hands came up in small fists as Jimin leaned into the upturned hospital bed to tie Jungkook’s green-white striped gown. Or the way his jaws clenched, and he took deep breaths at the touch of the older boy’s hand on his back and shoulder. Or the way Jungkook did not meet Taehyung’s eyes for a while afterwards. 

Playing with a discharged plastic bag that had contained an oxygen mask once, Taehyung watched as Jungkook excitedly told them about the little kid that had come in to say hi to him.

“He was like 4?” His eyes were as big and shiny as Christmas ornaments, “his dad’s next door to me, and he probably got bored of the grownups talking and came exploring! He was sooo cute hyungie!” Jungkook was out of breath before he had even ended the sentence.

“I’m glad he could give you some company baby,” Jimin said, handing Jungkook an Aloe Vera juice bottle, with bits, just like he liked it.

Taehyung, without knowing, was smiling at the interaction between the two boys in front of him. He had thought it would be a nightmare to watch Jimin interact with the boy he loved so much, and yet, there was a calmness that seemed to envelop them in a soft mist. They were eye smiles and soft touches, hands held for a second longer than necessary and jokes half-finished. Taehyung tried to convince himself that he was just happy his Ggukie was happy because at the end of the day, was that not what he wanted the most in the world?

A happy misfortune

“Fuck this hospital’s parking spaces,” Taehyung whispered, a few weeks into Jungkook’s recovery, as he sped walk through the hospital corridor. He had been running late as it was and with all the visitors having already arrived, he was now nearly 25 minutes late to meeting his boyfriend. It was hard going from spending every spare second of the day with Jungkook to two hours of measured time, that he didn’t even get alone to himself! Of course, Jimin would be there without fail, ‘didn’t he have better things to do? That selfish prick,’ Taehyung thought as he buzzed himself into the ward. The receptionist was well acquainted with him and barely glanced up before letting him in.

A cleaner clad in an all-black uniform halted him before he slid across the floor. He had not even noticed the wet floor; he was so preoccupied with getting into Jungkook’s room. 

“I am so sorry! I didn’t even see you there Hyung, please go ahead” Taehyung spread his hands across, “I will wait.”

He stopped in the small corridor that only Jungkook and his next-door neighbour shared. And took in the scene in front of him, the rectangle glass windowpane of Jungkook’s room giving him glimpses of something he knew he would one day see.

Jimin had been giving Jungkook one of his yoghurts, the lid stripped off and a wooden spoon dipped in it when Jungkook grabbed his hands with both of his larger ones. He looked up in Jimin’s eyes with a longingness that made Taehyung gasp out loud from where he stood. 

“Feed me,” Taehyung made out from reading Jungkook’s lips. He watched Jimin slowly undo both of Jungkook’s hands from his own, shake his head and smile. He messed Jungkook’s hair before turning around and pretending to occupy himself at the small table, which was always littered with food. From what Jungkook’s parents left and what the other two boys brought up in the evening. 

Tilting his head, a little to the right, Taehyung watched, stunned, as Jimin bit his lower lip and took deep breaths whilst facing the wall. Hiding himself from Jungkook, if only he saw the way Jungkook was looking at his back, he would probably have come and hugged the youngest boy to his chest.

He wanted to turn away, knowing that a thousand words were being spoken by the two boys in that small space together, but he couldn’t. The fear of something a lot more awful occurring glued him to the floor.

The cleaner had left a while ago, and yet Taehyung stood there. He watched as Jimin bent down and took Jungkook’s face in his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away at the tears that ran down the smaller boy's face. Pressing their forehead together, Jimin kissed Jungkook’s nose softly, whispered something to him that Taehyung could not make out and grabbed the see-through plastic water jug as an excuse to walk out the room.

He didn’t even acknowledge the stunned looking Taehyung as he strode past. Taehyung thought he’d be angry at what he had seen, fuming at his lover and his enemy wanting more from each other. But he stood there and felt a smile spread across his face, it grew from the pits of his stomach and thread itself in a warm glow all the way to his face. He would have to be the world’s biggest idiot to not have thought that Jimin and Jungkook had feelings for each other. And he would be the world’s worst boyfriend to not see the spark in Jungkook’s eyes when he mentioned his “Jimin-ssi”, or the way he smiled at his phone constantly whenever the two were talking (which was about every second of every day). He had always suspected as much, but this was the first time in 5 years the three were spending time together, and his theory was put to practice. 

It was only when Taehyung placed his right hand on Jungkook’s face that he looked up, shocked, and caught the former’s eyes. He did not have time to wipe away at his tears and pretend everything was okay.

“Do you love him?” Taehyung asked, watching Jungkook’s face for any changes. The younger blinked a few times and then sighed. 

“I am so sorry hyung,” he choked out, leaning into Taehyung’s touch. “I tried not to,” he took a big gulp of air, as if breaking the surface of the ocean, “but I failed.” 

Jungkook reached out with both of his hands and clung onto either side of Taehyung’s hands on his face, “I don’t want to lose you hyung,” his tears falling freely onto the coral coloured hospital blanket, soaking an oddly shaped spot into it, “please don’t leave me.” 

Jungkook closed his eyes, breathed deeply. They sat like that for a while, the younger bathing in his pain and Taehyung in his decisions. 

“You won’t lose me Ggukie, you really think I will let you go that easily?” 

Jungkook finally opened his eyes, “but you and Jimin hyung can’t stand each other.” 

“That’s between him and me, who says that has to come between what relationship you two have? I always said I would have to have an open relationship did I not?”

Jungkook used his gown to wipe away at his tears, his former shine returning to his face. “Yes, you did! But how could I know the rule stood with your biggest enemy too!”

“There is no exception when it comes to your happiness,” Taehyung whispered as he bought Jungkook into his arms. He felt the younger boy’s chin rest on his shoulder, heard a sigh that felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off him. 

“Do you think he likes me too?” Jungkook asked, making Taehyung break their hug and hold onto him by both shoulders. 

“WHAT?” 

“Do you think Jimin hyung likes me too?” The innocence in Jungkook’s question made Taehyung laugh so hard he struggled to keep his eye contact; he pressed his head into Jungkook’s collarbone. 

“You fools! You absolute fools.” 

“Stop laughing hyung! Please, I need you to ask him if he likes me like that, pleassse,” Jungkook’s eyebrows were low, his eyes squinting slightly.

“You can’t be serious,” Taehyung wiped away at his mouth, “absolutely not.” 

“You said there was no exception to my happiness, and this is to do with my happiness, so you have to,” he folded his arms on his chest, the cannula marks still healing, but not fast enough. 

At five past ten when Yoongi came to do Jungkook’s vitals, he saw him lying in bed with the biggest grin on his face. It was like he had won the biggest battle of his life. He had not seen him that happy when they had told him he could finally start getting physiotherapy sessions to get him back to his former self again. 

“You’re looking very happy today,” Yoongi slid the oxygen monitor on Jungkook’s hand, “your two boyfriends bought you something special?” 

“Firstly, I am a genius hyung!” Jungkook smirked. “And secondly, they’re not both my boyfriends… not yet anyways.”

“If you say so,” Yoongi said, unwrapping the blood pressure cuff from Jungkook's very muscular arms, ‘it’s so unfair he’s already taken, and not even once but twice over!’

“I finally gave Taehyung hyung a reason to have a proper conversation with Jimin hyung, I just hope they discuss more than the topic of me,” Jungkook allowed himself to confide to his nurse, they spent more time during a week than Jungkook did with anyone else.

“We will throw a party as a ward if those two leave here being civil to each other before your discharge,” Yoongi gave Jungkook a gummy smile, his fingers were inputting the vitals on the small iPad that each staff carried with them.

“You all have such low expectations, of me and my recovery and now of my hyungs! This won’t do!” Jungkook shouted as Yoongi left him, his door half ajar like Jungkook liked it. 

‘I want so much more,’ Jungkook thought, undoing his phone case to reveal a picture of the three from before the fight, they were on the floor of Taehyung’s living room, neck-deep in a 2000-piece puzzle. It was one of his happiest moments. 

The next day as they left Jungkook’s room, Taehyung walked a few steps behind Jimin. It felt like someone had shoved a handful of sand in his mouth and throat, he could barely make a noise. His hands grew calmly at his sides, he wiped them on his wide-legged black trousers. The cotton seeping in the moisture as more of it grew on his hand. He kept his eye on the nape of Jimin’s neck, unable to call out and say his name. They were out of the ward and onto the main corridor, if Taehyung did not say something soon, they’ll be lost between the crowds, or get separated by the decision of the lift or the staircase. 

Jimin had pressed the green button that indicated the ground floor. They both watched as the lift came all the way from the 6th floor to their own. 6, 5, 4, 3. And yet Taehyung had not said a word.

Jimin was already inside the lift when Taehyung finally swallowed hard and choked out a faint, “Jimin.” They both stood across from each other and watched the door close between them. Taehyung was too immobilized to get in after him. The door slammed shut between them and Taehyung gulped painfully. ‘Well that was embarrassing, never again,’ he thought shaking his head.

His foot was midway in the air, about to head towards the steps when the doors slowly cranked open. Jimin’s ringed index finger pressed against the two arrows that indicated the opening of the door. He met Taehyung’s eyes which he could not maintain. Instead, he looked at the poster for the bake-off that the paediatric oncology ward was doing in a weeks’ time. He made a mental note to go visit it. 

With a lot of concentration on each of his feet, Taehyung stepped into the rectangular metal cage. ‘Thank god hospital lifts are as large as they are!’ It was the size of his bathroom at home, but with the amount of hospital beds, food trolleys and machinery that passed between the floors, there was no option but to make the lifts as large as practically possible. 

It was only at the automatic doors of the main entrance that Taehyung finally spoke again, “Jung-kook, he- Ggukie,” he stammered.

A porter pushed an empty wheelchair between them, a mother and child rushed by them on either side. They got an eye-roll from a middle-aged lady and decided to step aside further. They were blocking the way. 

“I need to talk about Jungkook,” Taehyung half-shouted, looked around at the scene and added, “not here though.”

Talking a step forward, Jimin closed the distance between them, “my car is still in the garage from the accident,” he said matter-of-factly. 

Not wanting to talk to Jimin any more than he needed to, Taehyung bought up his maps app and handed it to Jimin to enter his address. 13 minutes was all that Taehyung had to get this conversation about love, relationships and feelings out of the way. This would decide Jungkook’s fate, and yet it was only after they had exited the hospital’s car park did Taehyung finally say start talking.

“I’m only doing this because Jungkook wanted me to,” Taehyung spared himself a glance at the rear-view mirror, Jimin was staring straight ahead.

“Okay,” Jimin finally said when the silence grew unbearable.

Taehyung had never thought of his car as a small one, and yet now it felt like the metal walls of it were pressing into his skull and making it hard to concentrate. He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. 

“He likes you,” Taehyung’s foot pressed the accelerator, they’d just dodged a red light. 

“Well, I bloody hope he does!” Jimin’s laughter filled the car and suddenly Taehyung’s chest opened, he found it easier to breathe. He couldn’t help but smile himself. 

“No, I mean he likes you more than a friend.”

“I know.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Taehyung whipped his head to look at Jimin staring out his window, his hands loosely folded on top of each other. 

“What more is there to say Taehyung?” He turned, looked the latter in the eyes with so much pain that Taehyung looked back at the road again. This was not going to be easy.

“Do you like him back in the same way?” 

“Why does it matter how I like him?” 

The sharpness of the brake jolted both a little forward, their seatbelts chafed at their collarbone. “Why can I never get a straight answer out of you?” Taehyung’s voice rang loudly through the car, vibrated off the glass and metal. He saw Jimin wince from the sides of his eye. 

Jimin remained silent, so Taehyung continued, through gritted teeth, “haven’t changed a whole lot, have you?”

“I don’t expect you to know of them regardless.”

“I know of every meal you have ever had, every place you have been to and every emotion you have felt Park Jimin.” 

“It makes no difference.”

“To you, it may not, but do you realise I could have told Jungkook to stop being your friend during that summer when we last spoke?”

“That would’ve been a very asshole of a move.”

“Yes, and after what you did, do you not think you deserved it?”

Jimin shrugged. 

They were on a clear stretch of the road; no cars could be seen ahead of them. 

“I have never stopped caring about you Jimin. No matter how much I tried, I could never stop Jungkook from telling me how you were, where you were, what you were doing with your life. Sometimes I pretended to be angry at him just so he would retort back and tell me in detail about what you two got up to. Not because I was jealous but because, even though all my hate towards you, I never stopped caring about you.”

Jimin took a large inhale of air. “You two were in a romantic relationship, but the same was never true for me and Jungkook. So why do you think I never moved on even though it hurt me to see the two of you so happy for so many years? Do you really think it was because I liked suffering?”

Taehyung put the car in park in a semi-detached house. The front lawn looked so well kept that Taehyung would have asked if Jimin kept a gardener if the situation had been a little lighter. 

He slumped his head on the headrest, closed his eyes. “I could forgive everything Jimin, from the lies of our first argument to all the time you spent avoiding me afterwards, your anger towards me dating for Jungkook. I could forget it all, but I can never forgive you for what you did to my sister.”

His eyes snapped open as Jimin was halfway out of the door, he had heard a faint whisper of, “you never truly knew me at all.”

“What? Jimin, what?” He was undoing his own seatbelt; he couldn’t do it fast enough. Jimin had slammed the door in his face as he was leaning towards it.

He grabbed a fistful of Jimin’s t-shirt a second later. “Explain what you mean by that.” 

The ground felt like it was tilting to the sides a little, he was breathless and yet he had not done anything laborious for a while. The light around him was sucked up until all he could see was just himself and Jimin, in a stark brightness that made his head hurt. Something had gone awfully wrong and all he could do was tighten his grasp on Jimin’s clothing until his knuckles pressed into Jimin’s back.

He swung around, nearly knocking Taehyung off his feet. He stumbled back. 

“It was all a lie!” Jimin shouted.

“What was?” 

“Mina has been, is, and will forever be my younger sister. I can’t believe you bit into the lie I fed you!” Jimin rubbed his face with his hands, digging the tips of his fingers into his cheeks and pressing into them, “she wanted to make a boy in her year jealous and could not fake date Jungkook because firstly, he was dating you, and secondly because it is not as impressive as dating someone from 2 years above.” 

“You said,” Taehyung sputtered like a fish left on the dock to die, “you said you were only dating her because you couldn’t get me.”

“You fool, I was heartbroken, do you know what that feeling is? Probably not, your first crush became your boyfriend, how could you.” He took a step back, cocked his head to the right and looked directly at Taehyung, “I was grieving over the death of my first love, everything was a blur of red, and when it wasn't red it was a darkness that soaked into my soul. I only said all that to hurt you for how much pain you had caused me.”

The surrounding houses seemed to be eavesdropping, it was silent but for the two boys that stood facing each other. Taehyung was sure he was being mocked for how stupid he had been.

“Not only was I coping with the loss the future I had built up around you, I was having to place my own best friend in to replace me. It was all a bit too much.” 

It had been a week since school had begun after their last argument, Taehyung stood at the door to his sister’s room, a hand on the doorknob, “you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes! I told you I’m fine!” She put her hand over her headphone’s mouthpiece, “oppa I’m talking to Youngsoo, please leaveeee!” 

She sounded embarrassed of her own brother, which Taehyung put down to her insecurities with the new boy in her year. Taehyung was very well aware of how beautiful his little sister was, but he shook his head as he headed to his room. ‘She did move on rather quickly,” he thought. 

Her happiness over her new relationship had stopped Taehyung from bringing up her “heartbreak” with Jimin. It would be like to preach to the converted, no use at all.

He felt the evening wind rush past him now, bathing his lungs with fresh air. “I could have never known,” Taehyung said in a whisper. He was not sure if he was more guilty at having thought Jimin would stoop so low or angry at his best friend and sister fake dating without telling him. 

“I am sorry Taehyung; it was my fault for lying to you and then letting my pride get in between us. I could have told you all this earlier, but my arrogance stopped me coming to apologise.” 

“Why did you avoid me after our first argument? If we had talked it out then, none of this would have happened.” 

“I needed space; I was so overwhelmed with your presence. I think that was the time when I felt myself morphing into you, I was struggling to see which part of me was mine and what was yours. I didn’t know where one of us began and the other ended. I wanted to find myself, away from you.”

Taehyung searched around the garden for something he could say, but he let the smaller boy continue, unable to conjure a reply. “I gave you the excuse of studying because I didn’t know what I was feeling. In those few days after our argument I just wanted to be alone, everything else felt like a burden. It felt like a tiger was sitting on my chest, paralysing me. But looking back at it, I was just trying to figure out who I was, and it led to one misunderstanding to another until we have wasted 5 years of our lives with nothing but pain and regret to look back at.” 

“I am sorry too Jimin-ah, I should never have thought of you so lowly in the first place. You were my best friend and yet I let the anger of an older brother cloud over everything you stood for. I wish I had tried harder to speak to you about how you were feeling.”

The sides of Jimin’s lips rose on either side, his smile reached his eye, just like it did all those years ago, “I think there is a lot we would both do differently, but at least we made one good choice in life.”

And with happiness they had not felt for a long while, they both said in unison, “Jungkook.”

On their next visit to Jungkook’s ward, they would both fall into steps alongside each other. There was the same silence, but rather than shrouding them in and making it difficult to breathe, this time it felt companionable.

The three nurses and the doctor at the nurse’s desk would raise their eyebrows and look around in shock, but of course, only after the pair had passed them. Professionalism was to be learnt from healthcare practitioners. 

The oldest nurse would whisper, “did the sun rise from the west today?” 

When Jungkook was successfully sandwiched between his two hyungs, all three of them on the side and the bed rails raised on either side, to stop anyone from falling off the hospital bed, Jimin took Jungkook’s face in his hands once more. He could feel Taehyung’s hands wrap around his middle tightly, his face buried in Jungkook’s neck. His lips brushing faintly against Jungkook’s collarbone as he watched Jimin’s next move. 

Jimin’s eyes found Jungkook’s, held them in place as he slowly whispered, “my kookie,” as he kissed the younger boy’s forehead and cheeks, jaws and the sides of his lips. Jungkook’s breath hitched as he stopped there. 

Taehyung smiled at seeing how softly Jimin kissed his Ggukie, both of their eyes closed, and the yearning of years finally being satisfied. He’d watch Jungkook’s hands find hold in Jimin’s hair, drawing him even closer. 

“You like me too hyung?” Jungkook asked, his eyes sparkling with an innocence that left both of his boyfriends tearing up from laughing so hard. 

“Yes, yes I do, my baby.” 

“I’m glad you both made up,” Jungkook mumbled, sleep enclosing him in its warm embrace. His physiotherapy sessions were getting more intense by the day, he imagined he could go back to dancing in less than half a year. 

He tugged at Taehyung’s hand from where it lay on his stomach and Jimin’s from his chest and placed them into each other’s, aware of the soft gasp that left their mouths as he himself drifted away to dreamland.

At the age of 16, their hands had been of a similar size, but that had changed considerably now. Taehyung felt his own engulf Jimin’s smaller, softer hand. He heard Jimin gulp audibly as he squeezed the tips of his fingers slightly, a shot of flames tracing all the way to the pits of his stomach. It was a similar sort of sensation to the one he’d felt for Jungkook all those years ago in their gaming room, but this was calmer, and it took a lot longer to die down. 

He felt Jimin slide up the bed a little, positioning Jungkook’s head on his chest. With their hands still intertwined, Taehyung looked up to catch Jimin’s eyes. This time he didn’t back away. “We need to talk,” he whispered so as not to disturb the sleeping boy they both clung to.

“I thought we already did,” Jimin grinned, mischief twinkling in his eyes.

“About us.” 

A return to the known 

With their toes dipped into the ocean’s edge, the two sat on boulders, sides pressed into each other. Their shoes lay behind them, on the edge of Taehyung’s jacket which they were using as a makeshift picnic blanket. The sun was kissing the faraway waves at the edge of the horizon, a chill wind forcing them to huddle into each other. 

Jimin played with the threads of his ripped jeans, which were the same colour as the ocean, a murky blue-grey. Taehyung watched him earnestly, the beauty of the sea and sunset lost to his eyes. “Don’t be a cliché and tell me you never stopped loving me ever since we were teenagers.” 

“You were my first love, even if I did fall out of love with you, you’d still remain a part of me. I think that goes without saying for everyone.”

“Focusing on the word ‘if’ there makes me realise that that is exactly what happened?” 

He pursed his lips together, turned his face to Taehyung and nodded. 

“Was it not painful? Seeing me date Jungkook all the while being in love with us both?”

“This is going to make me sound like a martyr, so forgive me, but I was just happy I was still in your lives, yours indirectly compared to Jungkook’s.”

As carefully as handling a box of newly born kittens, Taehyung pulled Jimin into his lap. He let go of his hands and brought it to Jimin’s face, and whispered, “I’m just glad the three of us made it, even if it did take a while,” he kissed Jimin softly on the mouth. He tasted of the ice creams that they’d licked on summers gone by, the warm soup they’d shared after school and of all the things that reminded Taehyung of home.

He was glad to have returned. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this work of mine, I appreciate your time a lot! Please leave a comment to make me happy.
> 
> I have other fics (canon, au's, one-shots and chaptered fics) if you would like to give them a go :)
> 
> This work was created and posted for free, however, if you would like to support me, you can tip me here: [my ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/vminthough)
> 
> All the love, ira


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